


Troubled Reappearance

by Thrushsong_kVaris



Series: Friday Night Fights [4]
Category: Magic Kaito
Genre: Angst, Gen, Kaito is 21 in this fic, Kaito is not dealing well with this revelation, Toichi is not a good parent, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, in that Kaito is attempting to shove his emotions down, instead of expressing his unhappiness, mentions of Jii and Chikage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:13:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29232093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thrushsong_kVaris/pseuds/Thrushsong_kVaris
Summary: Kaito froze mid-step in the doorway to his kitchen, staring in shocked disbelief. There was a person in his kitchen. No, not just a person—His fatherwas in the kitchen.
Relationships: Kuroba Kaito | Kaitou Kid & Kuroba Touichi
Series: Friday Night Fights [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2121906
Comments: 5
Kudos: 19





	Troubled Reappearance

Kaito had never known before that declarations of love, words meant to comfort, show care and affection, could cause so much _hurt_.

~flashback~

Kaito froze mid-step in the doorway to his kitchen, staring in shocked disbelief. There was a person in his kitchen. No, not just a person—

 _His father_ was in the kitchen. Standing over the stove and stirring a pan of eggs like the last thirteen years of Kaito’s life had never happened.

The man turned to look at him, and Kaito could feel his brain screeching in confusion because that expression was the same smile he remembered from his childhood as the man greeted him, “Good morning, Kaito.”

“Wh— _Tou-san?!_ ” Kaito thought his shock was perfectly reasonable, but apparently his father didn’t agree.

“Were you expecting someone else?”

“I—well, no, but—” did Kaito really have to _explain_ why he was shocked to see a man in his kitchen who hadn’t been seen for thirteen years?

Frowning, the man asked, “What’s wrong, son?”

 _You’re supposed to be dead!_ Kaito thought hysterically. _What is_ happening _right now?!_ He was tempted to say exactly that, but at the same time he was half-afraid this was a bizarrely realistic dream, and questioning it would only cause him to wake up.

“Breathe, Kaito.”

He blinked in surprise as he realized his father had stepped away from the stove during his mental freak-out and was _standing right in front of him—!_ He didn’t quite manage to cover his startled flinch as the man reached out toward him.

It was only Kaito’s own experience with Poker face that let him see the sadness around the edges of his father’s expression as he aborted his movement. “I’m not going to hurt you,” Toichi said softly. “I would never. I love you, son.”

~end flashback~

And with that quick little, “I love you,” everything began to change.

It was as if the hollow in his chest that had been created when his father died had suddenly been filled—but Kaito had grown and changed, and the man determined to slot himself back into Kaito’s heart no longer fit inside that hollow. On the surface, everything was fine, but he knew they both could hear where the edges that no longer fit ground angrily against each other like improperly aligned gears.

Kaito wished he could say he didn’t know why his father’s refusal to acknowledge those mismatched pieces hurt so much. He knew exactly why—this was the man who should care for him, was supposed to have _raised him_ , and every refusal to acknowledge the differences growing up without the man had wrought in Kaito felt like a slap in the face. Each declaration of love and care seemed to only highlight the gap made by thirteen years of absence—as if the years he spent mourning his father, his five years as KID spent hiding himself from everyone in order to expose his father’s murderer, all meant nothing.

Maybe if the man had bothered to sit down and explain what had happened, Kaito might be able to forgive him. Eventually. In a decade, maybe. Eight-year-olds weren’t the best secret-keepers, sure, but Kaito had been acting as KID for five years and the man had never once thought, ‘Hey, maybe I should let my son know I’m _actually alive_ ’?

When Toichi spoke of talking to Jii-chan about a new trick, or surprising his mother when she came home, all Kaito could think was, _Am I the only one who didn’t know?_

There wasn’t a single hint in KID’s workshop that Toichi had faked his death. Kaito had scoured every inch of the room, if there had been a clue there, he would have found it.

Which led to another question that stabbed Kaito every time he saw that same smile on the man’s face, as if nothing had ever changed: _Why now? If even KID wasn’t enough to change your mind, what do you want by coming back now? What changed?_

As much as he’d like to imagine Toichi was suddenly overcome with regret for lying to Kaito for over a decade, if that was true that man probably would have actually attempted to apologize or explain himself, instead of changing the subject any time Kaito hinted at asking about where the hell the man had been for the past thirteen years.

Then there was the fact that Kaito had seen and heard those exact same expressions of love and care right up until the moment the man had faked his death and disappeared off the face of the earth. ( _Had they ever been real?_ ) He couldn’t help but wonder how long the man would stay—if everything was the same as before, that meant there was every chance that one day Toichi would decide ‘it’s time to disappear’ and then Kaito would be left behind alone. Again.

Every “I love you” was a reminder to Kaito that he wasn’t loved _enough_. Not enough to know the truth, not enough to stay with him, not even enough to get to see behind the poker face.

And it _hurt_. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to talk to Jii-chan or his mother because if he found out that all of them had been keeping this from him he didn’t think he could take it. Was it selfish, to wish that he wasn’t the only one his father had abandoned? He didn’t think it would be _better,_ exactly, if they didn’t know about it, but if they _had_ been in on this too, it would be so much worse.

 _How much of his life had been a lie?_ Kaito was afraid to find out.

If Poker-face smiles and empty ‘I love you’s were all he would get, Kaito would respond in kind. He could smile with the best of them when he needed to. (So much had changed; he didn’t want to admit that he was afraid of what might happen if he refused to play along.)

He could hold out until the end of the week—his mother was apparently arriving back in Japan then, and Kaito hoped he could at least get some kind of answer when that happened. He only needed to wait four days. He could do this, he’d learned how to be patient. (Kaito shoved the thought that he shouldn’t _have_ to wait for an explanation to the back of his mind.)

But before that, he had the heist tomorrow. It had already been planned for weeks when Toichi had showed up out of nowhere. Luckily Kaito hadn’t needed to really do any last-minute prep either today or yesterday because he probably would have taken twice as long as necessary to accomplish anything.

The heist itself would be fine, though—honestly, he was eagerly looking forward to it—he could focus on the jewel and taunting his detectives and ignore everything else for the night. (He was _not_ going to think about whether Toichi would be proud of his tricks. He was _good_ at magic, and even being confronted with his parent’s newly revealed failure to _actually parent_ would make him doubt himself _that_ much.)

**Author's Note:**

> So [this week’s](https://promptsforthestrugglingauthor.tumblr.com/post/642315178864738304/writing-prompt-731) Friday Night Fights prompt inspired me to write out most of this one-shot. The AU idea has been in my head for a while but the next part is a chapter fic focused on the heist night. (I only have like, 300 words of that actually written out so far because I keep getting distracted by other fics💦)  
> I’m not super happy with Toichi’s lines in the beginning, but anything else I tried was just as bad ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> Leave a comment on your way out?


End file.
